Listened to CKNT a couple of days ago on the way from Hamilton at around 5 PM... after about an hour, my ears started to bleed.

Boy... for a radio station, this outfit needs A LOT of work. They have this radio show running from 4 to 7 PM, all spoken stuff with phone calls and such. The audio is a complete disaster - it is either too loud or too soft. There is quite a bit of clipping and over-modulating. I'm no fan of commercials but whoever is advertising on this radio station should get their money back - the background music obliterates the spoken parts of the commercial so you have no idea what the commercial is all about. Same happens with some of the music being played where the lyrics are barely audible yet the accompanying music comes through just fine. It's almost as if you fed the hot leads of left and right channels of your stereo into a speaker - lyrics are common to both channels and will cancel out, while music will come through since the different instruments are distributed between the two channels (ie. drums being predominantly on one side, bass on the other, etc)
So one of the guests on the show was Ravi, who was referred to as a "radio wave technical expert".... I had to laugh - maybe Ravi should have a listen to the actual broadcast and help them fix this mess.

I'm still questioning their station identification etiquette. Every so often they transmit "This is Sauga 960" and not once is the station callsign ever mentioned. As a ham, I have to identify myself every 10 minutes with a full callsign and I would like to think that a radio station, since it is transmitting continuously, should identify itself at least once every 30 minutes..... but that's just me.

Looks like they're fully operational calling themselves "SSAUGA 960"

I'm noticing some of their programming is still overmodulated and they should really pay attention to regular station identification, especially at night.

RadioActive wrote:

When I asked the woman who answers that phone number given on air if they had a full staff - this was on June 19th - she admitted they hadn't hired everybody and were still looking at resumes.

I got the impression they had almost no staff and when I asked her how they could possibly sign on by Canada Day (which she told me was the target date) she insisted they would be ready. 

Meanwhile, the testing continues. And continues. And continues. They're testing all right - our patience! 

We are tentatively planning to be doing some testing this Thursday (July 12th) sometime from 10AM - 1PM. Expect the transmitter go off the air for a while... not sure if there will be any tones transmitted as of yet.

Agreed. 

BTW, I went east of Toronto for some work related stuff yesterday. Had a very good copy of CKNT at Oshawa Airport when they were putting out daytime power. I tuned in again at Peterborough Airport at 9 PM (night power) and the station was completely obliterated by WFIR out of Roanokie, VA. There was another sports station as well but didn't get an ID...possibly out of New York. I listened while driving back to Pearson and  it wasn't until close to the 407/404 interchange when I could actually hear CKNT.

When I Google "cknt website", the first listing that pops up is "Welcome to LCBO". 
I like it! My kinda radio station! 

Jody Thornton wrote:

navaidstech wrote:

Here is the CKNT antenna as seen from Courtneypark. Took this pic on the way from work this afternoon.

How expensive would that antenna and mast be to install and operate over the year?  It must be able to effectively cover a small town, no?  If you had one in say Newmarket, then I'm sure Bradford, Oak Ridges and Aurora would be reachable, no?
 

I'm just guessing here but the upfront cost of setting up the station could be somewhere in the area of 30-40ish grand. You're looking at the purchase price of the shack, antenna, antenna counterpoise kit, antenna tuning unit, concrete base for the antenna, land to lay down the counterpoise (could lease it), fence around the site, labour to get it all set up (manpower, crane, etc). Of course you'll also need a transmitter (which can be pretty pricey) and ancillary equipment with internet hookups. On top of it annual licencing costs, hydro, land lease, insurance, etc...
The area you're trying to cover is pretty small so you can get away with low powered transmitter but would have to invest more into making the antenna more efficient....or vice versa - make the antenna less efficient but pump more power into it. There is always a tradeoff.
You'd probably be better off with FM as it doesn't require a lot of land to erect an antenna.

Here is the CKNT antenna as seen from Courtneypark. Took this pic on the way from work this afternoon.

markow202 wrote:

navaidstech wrote:

markow202 wrote:

Oh ok.  Being AM I wonder if its a new single tower or something else.  I remember the airport 1280AM CFYZ back in the day used a "umbrella" type antenna atop a maintenance building of theirs.  
 

It's a fibreglass whip with a Valcosphere on top. It is located in a trucking yard, on the east side of the Husky gas station (Courtney/Kennedy). You really can't miss it as you're driving on Courtneypark.
In the picture above, you have to go past the gate on the right (good luck, it is motorized with security staff on site), then make a left and go all the way to the end. The transmitter shack and the antenna are located about 100 feet behind a safety fence. The fence is there to protect people from getting too close to the antenna. It is also an area where they buried the ground plane to increase antenna's efficiency so obviously they don't want anyone driving on top of it.

Very cool! I'll have a look again when in the area. Upon a google search of this info it appears to be a proprietary system made by a company called Valcom for AM antennas.   Do you work for them? 

You are correct! The antenna is made by Valcom out of Guelph and the transmitter is made by Nautel which is a very well known maker of LF and BCB transmitters. They're located in Nova Scotia and Maine.
I don't work for either of the two companies but know their products very well since they have been extensively used in my line of work (ground based air navigation beacons, amongst many others).
 

Tim Brown 2016 wrote:

markow202 wrote:

andysradio wrote:

They are playing classical music. I just heard an ID out of them giving out a phone number and email address. 960 AM with 2kWs day, 280 watts night.

Where did the transmitter and tower end up being? 

Just outside the western edge of Pearson Airport.

Daytime reception here is Stouffville is weak but listenable.

Tim

I had a solid copy on my car radio along the 401 to past Bowmanville. I was able to still make it out at the Onroute rest stop in Port Hope.

RadioActive wrote:

They powered down for pattern change but they're still receivable here in northern North York. Noisy but listenable. However the question remains as to whether there will be anything worthwhile to listen to on the station, especially overnights. I'll be really curious to see what their programming schedule looks like - if they ever get a website up and running.

Just for fun, I phoned the Mississauga News tipline on Tuesday to ask if they were going to do an article on the city's new radio station. The woman there asked me point blank, "Mississauga has a new radio station?" 

CKNT has its work cut out for it.

If you're referring to the radiation pattern then there is only one - omnidirectional. The transmitter runs on a single 80 foot whip antenna.